The Rising
by Haraya
Summary: When the girl is interrupted while trying to kill the green-eyed Shifter, her world comes crashing down. OC fic. Spoilers up to Chapter 55. Multichap. Rating for language and heavy violence.
1. Chapter 1: Chase

PLEASE READ THE PROLOGUE IN MY HOMEPAGE!

**Author's Note**: Sorry it's been so long but I just survived the final hell week of the school year so it's unofficially over and I'll have more time for writing. I'll be updating _Black Chocolate _and starting a new SnK multi-chaptered fanfic called _Wings_ in the days to follow before going on hiatus to finish a Sandman fanfic. In the meantime, please enjoy…

* * *

**Chapter 1: Chase**

Levi spurred his horse faster and the rushing air didn't sting his trained eyes. "Are you sure it's this way, Sasha?"

"Positive, sir!" screamed the girl, still clutching the fine red strand in her right hand along with the reins of her horse. She held it up to her nose for the umpteenth time that morning and sniffed, then lowered it and, as if on cue, the wind blew from the direction they were heading. "And whoever it is is still there, just a few meters away!"

"How do you know?" yelled Connie.

"Quiet! You'll scare away the prey!"

"It's you who's screaming, idiot!"

Levi sighed, already bordering on pissed without his morning coffee. Despite the drills they went through every afternoon, none of Levi's underlings were used to ignoring the sound of the air passing through them and the thundering of their own horses' hooves when riding yet but he knew that it was only a matter of time. For now, he will have to raise his voice every time he talked.

"Both of you shut up," said Levi. There was silence, and he let it settle for a while. "You all know what to do then?"

"Yes, sir!" replied four voices at once, each dripping with eagerness to make up to him and please, even those that belonged to Armin and Jean.

"Good," said Levi. "Disperse."

* * *

The wind smelled strangely and it came from the west. The girl lowered her fishing spear and listened. The early morning birdsong died abruptly in her head and for a moment, there was nothing in the void but the beating of her heart. And then she heard them: strange whizzing sounds like compressed air crashing through hollow space, and the unmistakable sound of knives piercing through bark, followed by the scattering of splinters on grass as they parted company with wood. They were approaching loudly, whoever made the noises, and they were making no effort to lower their voices.

By the time the riders had come to her spot, the fishes she had speared were in a hole beneath an inconspicuous rock by the stream. The girl herself had stored away her tool, stashed her now dry clothes into her bag, slung it on, put on her cloak, flipped up its hood, put on her hat, and tree-hopped a good way away and now she stopped to stare at the little party that were passing by the brook on their horses. There were rectangular metal boxes strapped to the side of their thighs that must have been the source of the noises that had given away their position. She let the corners of her mouth lift and crouched lower on her branch.

They were coming closer but she wasn't afraid. The rider on the left with ashen blond hair asked the dark-haired man in the middle a question; he gave him an answer she couldn't hear and beckoned to the blonde rider on his right, who loaded his pistol and fired green smoke into the air. The girl found this funny and smirked wider, then dove off her branch as she tucked her bangs behind her left ear.

* * *

Levi took a look at his advance guards' bleeding heads and knew at once that the intruder was in the trees. "Where?" he asked Connie, who had managed to remain conscious.

"Up ahead, sir," slurred the boy before blacking out.

"Jean," said Levi.

"Yes sir!" and in a second, he was within the trees and off.

"Armin."

"It's minor sir!" said Armin, releasing his pinch on the bleeding knot on Sasha's brow and hoisting her up on Jean's abandoned horse to move them to a more secluded spot. "Apparently, they just bumped their heads together. It's Historia who knows about stopping clots but that aside, they'll be fine soon."

"Good. Black, then."

"Yes, sir!" said Armin as he leapt up on his horse, or so Levi imagined as he galloped deeper into the forest after Jean. In a few seconds, a gunshot fired behind him and the wind picked up enough to throw the smell of gunpowder from Armin's flare gun at him.

He unslung the rifle off his shoulder and made sure it was loaded.

* * *

The girl flew through the trees, shooting a hook, reeling herself in, and then spooling the wire back into its source with the three different triggers of her grappling gun, relying on momentum and the angle of her shots and gravity to swing herself forward. She had left the bald boy and the ponytailed brunette sprawled beneath the tree when none of them steamed as a message for their comrades. They should consider themselves lucky that she hadn't pulled out her knives on them.

The whizzing, hissing sound returned but this time it was alone. Adrenaline washed over her like morning sunshine. For the first time in ten years, something intelligent was finally bent on killing her and she could only feel excited. If it was a chase they wanted, then she would give it to them.

She slowed down, willing for them to catch her, wishing they would try. She heard the pursuer overtake her from somewhere to her right and move to her front. And they came, rather, he came, the boy with dark blond hair from before, and he had two blades drawn and he was aiming for her. She did what he wanted her to do and backtracked at the last second with a graceful flip and started retracing her path, her three longest left fingers dancing on her gun's triggers and her free hand flicking a few needles in the direction of the long-faced boy's arms. It was just like what she did with Deviants when she was bored: she would let herself get caught, scream even, and wait until she was inside them then hook herself to their nape and slice them slowly from the inside.

A _bang_ rang clear through the air and she stopped the bullet in its tracks with her right hand and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next as she pushed on and when she passed the dark-haired man on his horse with his rifle, she blocked his shots with her foot and legs without looking. They didn't want to kill her, the way they weren't aiming for her middle and later on, they would realize that that had been their first mistake. She wanted to stay and witness the shock on his face but she might begin toying with the idea of killing them if she stayed any longer and that was out of the question. She had a record she didn't want to break it.

These were humans she was dealing with after all, not Titans.

* * *

Mikasa 3D-maneuvered her way through the trees as fast as she could without getting ahead of the others, not wanting to lose them from her sight. A black flare meant that their intruder was not only using the gear but had hurt their comrades and she, Eren and Historia had hurried with their rifles the moment they saw the smoke in the sky. "Eren," she said, "Stay with Historia as she heals the others. Don't engage in combat."

"What? Mikasa!"

"Levi-heichou's orders," said Mikasa, hoping that settled everything, knowing it didn't. "Our enemy might be stronger than us, and our goal is to keep you two safe."

Eren hissed. "Heichou's orders…who made you Vice-Captain anyway?!"

"Everyone, Eren," said Historia, dodging a branch that jutted in her way. "Except you. Because the Special Operation's Squad's job is to protect us, Mikasa's more than perfect for the position."

"I know that! But just because I'm not as good as you," he said, glancing angrily at Mikasa as he did a somersault and launched a hook in a fresh spurt of gas, "that doesn't mean I'm useless!"

"I didn't say you were," said Mikasa, relying on her gas alone as they passed through a clearing. "But if you were to get hurt now, you wouldn't be able to fight when we need you the most." She fired a hook to touch down as Armin, Sasha and Connie's familiar figures reached their line of vision.

"Armin! How were they hurt?" asked Historia as she landed next to their two other team mates who were dazed and leaning against a tree with their heads in bloody bandages, her hands already digging deep into her medical kit. Mikasa vaguely heard Armin explain the situation as she made out a trail of green smoke through a gap of the canopy above them.

"That's the signal," she muttered. She covered an ear with a hand and fired her own flare above them.

"If anything goes wrong-"

"Yes, yes, a red flare. Don't worry about us Mikasa, we'll be fine," said Eren. Mikasa observed him for a few seconds before deeming that there was nothing wrong about Eren trying to relieve her of her worries. She felt heat creep up to her face.

"Alright. I take my leave, then. They're coming."

* * *

The girl watched the trail of green smoke race through the sky until it was ahead of her with mild interest. Another signal, which meant the fun wasn't over yet.

She sped up until her two chasers were out of sight, then made a sudden turn to the right so that she was out of the path of pursuers from both sides, smirking at the prospect of another painful collision. She went on for several meters before heading back left so that she was dashing along her original path, still going at her top speed.

Furious green orbs roared their way into her sight and took her by surprise but its owner took too long a time to yell at her. She buried her left knee into the brown-haired boy's stomach before he had time to swing down his blades and swung with all her might to the right, then reeled herself upward and let inertia take a hold of her.

She hung on to her grappling gun with her left hand until she was steady, then did a forward flip to land on the branch's top side, unhooking her device as she did so. She had lost them, it was over, and now she leaned against the tree to catch her breath, sweating and pleased.

She had turned to leave – she mentally thanked all of them for the most interesting morning she had in a long time – when something caught her eye. The head of the boy nearest to her was lolling in his chest but he was moaning in pain even though she was more than sure that his spine had been snapped in half by the impact of his crash. Now, though, she couldn't be too sure now that she couldn't see him through his own steam.

Steam.

Something shifted in the girl's head and her stomach flipped in delight. She dropped her backpack and hopped down – she knew how to fall from whatever height she was given – and sauntered towards the boy. Nothing else existed except the shadow of his figure, half-hidden in his little mist. She wiped the moisture off her goggles and shoved his head upwards with a foot. He had a handsome face, she had to admit, but it wouldn't be any use to him when he was dead. She unsheathed her sword and withdrew her foot to trace her favorite weapon against his newly-exposed nape. She wanted to have fun, to carve pretty pictures onto his flesh elsewhere and hear him cry and beg before ultimately ending him, but his screams would only draw unwanted attention. Oh well, she thought. Grinning wider, she started to trace a thin, deep line against his nape and her _katana_ felt sweet against his soft, tender skin.

There was a rushing sound behind her but she twisted her body in time to block the taller girl's swords with her own. The intruder had a scar on her cheek and fury in her eyes and she snarled dangerously as the paler girl raised an eyebrow. "Don't you fucking _dare _touch Eren!"

Her short, dark hair swayed in the air as she slashed and parried with Shifter's would-be-demise and the _ting, ting_ of steel against steel echoed through the forest. "Eren is it?" asked the other girl, amused and definitely impressed. "Well then." The cloaked girl put more pressure on her hold on her sword as a feint and in one fluid motion, slid down, missing the dark-eyed girl's blades, and performed a round kick on her knees. She flipped in the air and did a flying kick between the former's breasts as her knees buckled, sending her flying a few meters back. It was over in less than five seconds.

Still smiling, the hooded girl pulled on the boy's hair and dumped him in front of his lady friend. "Well then, Eren's-friend," she said, raising her sword in the air with one hand and savoring the way the other girl's black eyes widened in silent horror. She tried standing but she was coughing out blood, blood that was as red as the scarf she was wearing.

"Would you like to watch him die?"

* * *

The intruder's sword was an inch from Eren's nape when Levi swung his blades forward with a battle cry. They snapped in equal halves from the impact but sent the enemy's long sword flying. He made for the stranger's heart with one of the sharp stumps of steel in his hands but he only managed make a huge gash on their boot as they retreated with a several back flips.

He righted himself in front of Eren and reeled in his gear's hook when the person didn't attempt to run away. "Stay down, Mikasa," he ordered the girl, facing her attacker and not looking at his comrade. "Krista's tending Jean. She'll be with you in a minute." He heard her utter his name before giving up consciousness.

He eyed the hooded figure with unruffled wariness. If they had been able to hurt Mikasa just like that, then they would definitely be a force to be reckoned with.

"I'll take it your our ginger," he said, sheathing his blades and letting a hand slip into his jacket's inner pocket, channeling the rage that was boiling in his gut into his hands. "Why don't you let me…" he pulled out his pistol and this time, pointed it at the person's head. "…paint the rest of your body red too?"

The gun flew out of his hands by something too quick for him to catch before he was able to pull the trigger and he found himself facing the intruder's fist. He caught them by the wrist before their punch met home and twisted it as he aimed a knee for their stomach and groped for his sword with his free hand. He was impressed by the enemy's primary speed, but now they were just being boring.

Something no finer than a needle pricked several spots in his left arm as his knee hit cold air. The intruder had jumped and was now holding on to _his _wrist over his surprise, about to plunge their sword into his throat. He scowled. They were good and quick but also completely open. He became aware that his left hand should have found the hilt of his sword by now but his whole left arm was hanging limply by his side, with droplets of blood oozing from where the needles pierced him. The intruder plunged their knee into his chest and, unable to balance himself because of his still airborne leg, he fell. For the first time in literally decades, something cold clawed at his gut and squeezed. In less than a second, he was going to die and not even because of a Titan. Everything went slow and he watched the tip of the person's sword dive towards his throat…

And then it stopped.

* * *

The tip of the girl's blade nicked the man's pale skin but didn't sink in. Frozen and horrified, she stared back at the man's piercing grey eyes and her lungs screamed to release the air they hold.

He wasn't… He couldn't be… can't…

"Tom?" she whispered.

For a split-second, his narrow orbs clouded over with confusion. Then, the moment passed and he bucked, and before the girl knew what was going on, her sword had flown off her hands and she was beneath him with her hood drawn back. He strangled her hard and her hands flew to his and pulled. _It's me! _she wanted to scream. _I cut my hair off but it's me!_ She watched him grit his teeth and realized with equal horror that it _wasn't _her master – just someone who happened to share his eyes.

He brought his fist down on her head – once, twice, and again – and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2: Interrogation

**Author's Note**: Received my very first reviews ever for this story! One asked for more details (don't worry they'll come, I'm only just starting out; the revelations will come as the story progresses so stay tuned!), and the other simply made my day (ASDFGHJKL I'M SO DAMN HAPPY). I can't believe some people actually noticed this and for those of you who are still tuned in, I swear, I won't let you down!

This chapter's pacing's a bit slower than the first but it'll pick up by the time I reach Chapter 4 or so. For now, please enjoy...

* * *

**Chapter 2: Interrogation**

_The doctor who worked on her called the other doctors when she was finished and they talked in low voices and didn't let her leave the room. They sounded like they were fighting over something but she couldn't understand what. She asked if they were giving her medicine to make her sickness go away but nobody answered her. And then, one of the doctors took out something that looked like short, stubby scissors and asked her to hold out her left hand, palm down. She did because she was a good girl._

_When she woke up, her fingers were crying red, and when she screamed, the walls of her cell screamed back at her._

* * *

Her neck hurt when she shook her head and something malicious flitted its way out of her stomach. Her heart was banging uncomfortably in her chest and the cold air felt strangely artificial. There was a dull, pounding ache on her forehead; the light of the place beyond her lidded eyes was those of a new moon. The ground beneath her feet was hard but her back and the undersides of her thighs were on an unnaturally even surface. Her arms were pressed against something that wasn't her body and the scent of the air was spiced with familiarity.

The place below her ear prickled violently and her stomach lurched. She moved to grasp her sword but found that she couldn't, couldn't move, couldn't stand, couldn't curl up into a ball and scream, and the result was clenched fists, toes and eyes, her body pressed tightly against the chair she was tied in. This wasn't happening, this can't happening, she was still dreaming, still free, they hadn't caught her, they couldn't have, who'll save her if they did, why can't she wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up–

"Awake, are we?"

She heard her neck bones crackle as her head was flung aside by a powerful punch. The blood off the cut of her mouth tasted warm and metallic. She coughed up some more when someone drove their fist against her stomach. She felt nothing but the nervous churning in her gut and the acrid sludge of her vomit climbing up her throat. She wished it would just leave her already.

She knew where she was: she was in a _room_, with windowless walls and a roof blocking out the sun and she didn't know if it was the voice of irrational fright talking in her head or if the cold of the air told her she was, of all possible places to be in, underground.

She began to panic, existing and feeling but not comprehending, her heart, head and lungs started hurting, she was gulping in air but it wasn't enough. She couldn't move her arms or her feet, she was going to die, if the ceiling doesn't kill her, people will, she was going to die, she was going to motherfucking die underground, Titans were so much better than this, oh god, oh god, why, they were going to kill her, she was going to–

"Heichou told me not to start without him," said a quiet, silky voice. "But you know what? He's busy at the moment. And he wouldn't mind if I saved him some time."

Her eyes flew open, and all at once she remembered. And then, calmer and more relieved than she had ever been in ages, she swallowed, released a shaky, silent breath and raised her head to passively stare at the girl with the blood-red scarf.

* * *

Levi listened to the dull thud of a blow hitting a body and _tssk_ed. He had told Mikasa to wait for him, explained that she was only allowed to hit her when she refused to answer his questions but no, she had to go on ahead and start without him because Eren, Eren, Eren, and _Eren_; Levi-Heichou, did I mention Eren? He rolled his eyes as he opened the cellar's trapdoor and started trudging his way downstairs. Even though Mikasa was the one he could relate to the most in his whole Squad, that didn't take away the fact that she was the most annoying.

He huffed as he listened to her release a barrage of hits on their quiet intruder. He wondered if Little-Miss-Broody-Pants (_Shouldn't it be "Broody-Scarf?"_) would be more obedient if he threatened to punish Eren in her place everytime she did something that displeased him.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and as expected, Mikasa was so absorbed in what she was doing that his arrival came unnoticed. The candle on the table was closer to the tortured and her torturer, enabling him to hide in the darkness and remain unseen but view them without much difficulty. He tried crossing his arms before remembering he was injured. He cursed beneath his breath. His left arm had been totally immobile while the needles were buried deep into his muscles but Historia must have done something wrong in pulling them out because now he couldn't move them without sending his whole limb on fire with the most irritating little spasms of pain, like his funny bone decided to take up residency beneath the skin of his whole arm. That and the slightest shift in position would soak his bandage through with droplets of blood inappropriate for the size of the holes they came from until he was left with an icky, sticky, generally shitty feeling.

He was pissed and he frowned but he'll think about that later. The girl was probably half dead already, the way the other woman was mercilessly banging her face against the wall, and Levi wanted nothing more than to climb up the stairs and have Historia replace his bandages with fresh ones (again). Best to get it over already.

"Mikasa," he said, stepping into the light. "I'm punishing you for that later." The girl on the floor stopped shaking and shrank.

* * *

Mikasa flinched at the sound of her name but embedded her blade deeper into the girl's left cheek as she turned to look at her captain. He was mad at her, she can tell, and he _will_punish her this time, but even humanity's strongest could do nothing to turn back the time and undo what she did. This thought, however, almost did nothing to improve her mood. She righted the other girl's chair in a brusque fashion and stepped aside, not caring to apologize. She ignored the painful twinge between her breasts and glared at Levi as he approached their captive. The enemy had hurt and threatened to kill Eren, _her_Eren, and what Mikasa had done to her so far wasn't halfway enough to compensate for what she did to her family.

As she never had the chance before, Mikasa had never been one to be sadistic but as Armin always said, there's always a first time for everything. The ginger had looked cute when she just woke up, trembling like a leaf, hyperventilating even. Hurting her had been so _fun_, but then something happened and suddenly, she was staring at the Mikasa like the dark-haired girl was the most boring, pathetic excuse of a human being to ever exist and no matter how hard the taller woman hit her, that snide expression just wouldn't leave her goddamned face. It pissed her off to no end and, though she would never admit it, it bothered her.

"What's your name?" Levi demanded. "Who sent you to kill Eren?" Mikasa flexed her fingers, wishing she wouldn't break the silence, wishing for an excuse to hurt her.

A change overcame the girl: she had bowed her head and hidden behind her bangs like a wilted flower when she learned of Levi's presence but now she stiffened and her shuddering stopped altogether. And then she straightened quite easily, like the past fifteen minutes hadn't happened (Mikasa gripped her right wrist to stop it from swinging her sword forward) and stared at her captor the way she did with her torturer. But there was a difference: in the dim candlelight, Mikasa's obsidian orbs saw that this time there was a irate blaze burning behind the intruder's dark blue eyes.

Levi stared back at her unflinching. He tilted his head back ever so slightly. "Hmm. Stiff resolve. Very well then."

Mikasa started, distracted by the passionate wrath the other girl radiated before realizing that that was her cue. She held on to the chair's headboard smiled mirthlessly as she drove her knee twice against the blue-eyed girl's stomach, savoring the warmth of the specks of blood she coughed into her shirt.

"I'll ask you again," said Levi. "Who are you and who are you working for?"

The girl said nothing but kept staring at him. Mikasa grabbed a fistful of short red hair and slammed the shorter girl's face against the floor.

"He asked you a question, bitch," she growled, placing a foot heavily against the girl's head. "Answer him."

"Mikasa. That's enough."

"But Heichou-!"

"_Enough_Mikasa. Or do you want me to punish Eren in your place?"

Mikasa gasped, horrified of the prospect of another court episode but froze when she heard something that sounded like a repressed snort. She looked down. The girl's whole face was smothered in blood but Mikasa distinctly saw the corner of her mouth twitch upward for a split-second before disappearing in the candle's sputtering light. Furious to the brink of madness, she turned her head to appeal to Levi but he only looked at her impatiently, still scowling, still waiting for her to move aside, painfully innocent of what just happened. She pondered over ending it once and for all but the memory of Eren's face screwed up in pain forced her to hold on to her sanity.

She put the battered chair up in its proper position and stepped aside, vaguely aware of the splinters entrenched in her trembling hand from gripping its headboard too tightly. It was all she could do to keep herself from thrusting her bloody fist into the pale girl's throat with all her might.

"I admire your sense of dignity," said Levi. "But that's not gonna get you out of here." He drew out his blade and hit her head with its flat side before resting its point against her nape. "If you want to keep holding your head up high…" he drawled, pricking her nape until his sword's tip was lost from sight, replaced by a little bead of scarlet. "… I suggest you start talking."

The girl didn't respond and just kept on staring at him. _Try me,_her raging eyes seemed to say, the rest of her face still lax and emotionless.

Mikasa thought about the thousand ways she could rip her into pieces.

* * *

"Anything?" asked Jean, sitting on a stool in front of Historia with his shirt open for what felt like the thousandth time that afternoon.

"No," said Sasha, who was lying on the floor, her right ear pressed against the kitchen's trapdoor that led to the cellar. "I think Heichou's saying something about being impressed but she still hasn't said a single word. I wonder if they killed her."

"They wouldn't," said Historia, gingerly applying a gauze patch to one of the many bleeding needle-sized holes on her comrade's shoulders. "I heard Hange-san saying something about her bags being made of Titan's skin. I don't think they would kill her for that."

"More like screaming something," Jean mumbled.

"Is Mikasa finished yet?" Connie asked as his head peeked into the kitchen door. "Eren's awake and it would look awkward if I were the one to spoon-feed him."

"Why?" asked Jean trying not to move his shoulder as her turned to look at the shorter boy. "The bastard's a grown man, he doesn't need to be looked after. Damn," he hissed as a brand new ribbon of red trailed down his chest. Connie shrugged as he took a seat. "He just gapes at the ceiling like a fish but I distinctively heard his stomach growling."

"Maybe it was just yours," muttered Sasha distractedly, her ears still glued to the wooden square on the floor.

"It's his spine that's damaged," explained Historia, stopping another one of her squad mates' pending verbal battles and dabbing at her patient's freshest trickle of blood. "His nerves wouldn't be able to control his body until he's fully healed."

Connie sighed and fingered the bandage wrapped around his head. "That, and I still see stars every time I turn my head."

"Same here," said Sasha, on her spot on the floor. "But it doesn't hurt as much when I do this." She shut her eyes tight and placed her palms on the side of her head. And then, slowly, she rose to a sitting position, let go of her head and gently opened her eyes. She blinked a few times. "Ah, there! That's much better. Not as dizzying as before-"

The trapdoor slammed outward and everyone instinctively jerked their heads to see Mikasa's furious looking face ascend from the hole on the floor, her breathing sharp and shallow. Sasha and Connie winced and whined and held on to their bowed heads like their lives depended on it.

"Mikasa!" exclaimed Jean, "What happened? Are you -?"

"Get me Armin."

* * *

"Are you sure it's personal?" Mikasa asked her best friend. "Something to make her cooperate?"

"Positive," replied Armin, clutching the rectangular patch of bound leather closer to his chest as they descended the steps to the wine cellar. "Asides from her extra clothes, a talisman and a violin, this seems to be the only thing she owns that has nothing to do with killing Titans."

"Good," said Mikasa, tearing her side-ward glance away from him to glare ahead at something he couldn't see. "That's good."

They continued their journey in silence. Mikasa rolled away the empty wine barrel that covered a hidden trapdoor in the cellar and Armin pulled it open. He closed it gently to prevent the flame on Mikasa's candle from going out and they continued to march deeper underground. Armin had been working with Hange in inspecting their intruder's belongings and his hands were full of little nicks from probing curiosities that had turned out to be weapons as he was putting them down. His superior, on the other hand, had insisted on placing each item beneath her microscope and had very nearly strangled Armin to his death out of excitement. "I've never seen anything like this!" she had cried, performing a jumpy little victory dance with what looked like an ordinary jar of pickles in her hands. "I'm marking today on my calendar as the best day of my life so far!"

As he and Historia were the only one uninjured upon their return to their headquarters, Levi allowed Armin to busy himself with stripping the intruder of her belongings as his other golden-haired comrade tended the others. Even before Hange came to call ("I came for a quick visit and find another person to practice torturing on and a backpack full of goodies!" she had exclaimed to Levi after dispatching her squad-mate companion to go summon Erwin. "Isn't destiny the loveliest thing ever?"), he had already unearthed dozens of oddities from her bag and secret pockets from various articles of clothing such as a flask full of a clear, odorless liquid that killed one of the caged mice they had captured from their first cleaning expedition that he fed it to; a lengthy coil of wire that sliced his hand without him knowing; strange looking cogs that pricked him; a long staff with an arrowhead on one end that smelled like raw fish; notebooks with scribbles written in a different language; an open-ended, three-inch long ceramic cylinder with a hole in the middle; and, of all things, a violin. He had left Hange examining the redhead's clothes when Mikasa called for him, asking him to bring the most precious of the girl's possessions.

As they tramped down the final step, Mikasa wordlessly handed him the candle-holder and took the item from his hands. They approached Levi and Armin stifled a gasp when he saw their honored guest.

In the candlelight, she looked nothing short of terrifying: her face was puffy and her whole head was slick with blood that dripped down her neck and created red stains on her black, sleeveless wraparound tunic (_How could she stand the cold?_); there were bruises on her cuts and cuts on her bruises. Puddles of blood surrounded her chair as if she had recently been beaten up on the floor. Her hair was very short with bangs falling over her left eye, and the one exposed on the right side of her face was a dark blue that was almost black, more than intent on setting her interrogator's eyes on fire.

"Recognize this?" Levi asked, holding up the thing Mikasa handed him after giving it a close look. Armin saw that there was a gash on the stranger's nape but she was still pretty much alive and not at all steaming and he sighed a small breath of relief. It wasn't a Shifter that they were up against and that automatically doubled their chances of winning against her from four to one to two to one.

He moved closer to illuminate the rectangular patch of darkness on his captain's right hand. The girl eyed it for a split-second and Armin watched as familiarity seeped into her eyes followed immediately by fear and panic. He had guessed rightly: among all her possessions, her half-full sketchbook was her weakest link.

"These are nice drawings," Levi said, idly turning the pages over the best he could with just one hand and sounding as if he was talking about the weather. The girl made to stand and knock it off his hands but Mikasa pressed her blade against her heart with a cruel jeer that horrified Armin.

"Wouldn't it be a shame," their Captain said coolly, inching the notebook closer towards the flame of Armin's candle. The girl's mouth was moving, but not a sound escaped her lips. "Wouldn't it be a shame," Levi whispered, never taking his eyes off her, "…if something were to-"

"NO!"

Armin jumped at the sound of the girl's voice. It echoed across the tiny room and forced his heart to gallop at full speed and his hair to stand on end. It was the voice of a frightened child witnessing her mother's demise, the autumn wind mourning the death that surrounds it, the final cry of a dying swan.

Smoke hissed from the corner of the book's leather cover and Armin realized that he had jerked his hand back. He looked at Levi to see if they should continue burning it but the older man made no move to move closer to the flame. "No?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't!" cried the girl. "Stop! I-" But she couldn't bring herself to make any promises. She bowed her head and said no more. Her fists were quivering on the chair's armrest.

Levi approached her, handing the notebook back to Armin as he did so. "What is your name?"

The girl inhaled through clenched teeth and seethed: "Ruska."

"Ruska," repeated Levi as if tasting her name. "Who sent you?"

"No one," she spat out.

"Where are you from?"

She hissed threateningly but gritted out, "Nowhere."

"And where is that exactly?" asked Levi, holding on to Mikasa's arm to keep her from taking another step forward.

The girl on the chair hesitated. Then she said, "Hell."

Armin exchanged glances with Mikasa, his full of confusion, hers full of skeptic wrath for the stranger. When he turned back to his captain, he was surprised to see the faintest glimmer of a smirk leave the shorter man's mouth. "How many?" he asked.

The answer came quicker than Armin expected it to. "Three hundred sixteen." There was a sudden edge to her voice that made it sound quietly menacing and menacingly quiet, and he detected something that might have been pride in her strange words.

"Any Shifters?" asked Levi. The younger man started. Could it be that they were talking about…?

This time, the girl lifted her head just a fraction of an inch. "None." Armin saw her gaze sidle over to her side. "Yet." Mikasa hissed next to her, finally getting the flow of their conversation.

"I see. Not bad," answered Levi and though they've only been together for a week, Armin could tell that the older man was truly impressed.

The grey-eyed man stared at the seated girl a little longer. "Let's take a break. No Mikasa, we're done for today. You will go up to Krista and tell her to come down here." Mikasa had opened her mouth to protest but nodded at the sight of Levi's glare and with one last dirty look at the tortured, went briskly up the stairs.

Something jingled as it flew through the air and Armin barely stretched out his hand in time to catch it. A string of keys. "Armin. Follow up your research with Hange once you lock this bitch up in one of the cells."

"Yes sir!" Armin promptly answered, handing Levi the sketchbook as the dark-haired reached for it and placing his candle on the table.

"The name's Levi by the way," the shorter man said, going after Mikasa and leaving their line of sight as he ascended the stair's stone steps. Armin looked to the direction of his voice, perplexed, before realizing that his captain wasn't talking to him. "160 solos. No Shifters. Yet. Eren is off-limits if you want your freedom." The trapdoor snapped shut behind him.

By the time Armin finished untying one her bonds, the girl, Ruska, had already passed out. He stared at her swollen, bloodstained face and wondered how far they were supposed to throw their humanity away before it made any difference.


	3. Chapter 3: Decision

PLEASE READ THE PROLOGUE IN MY HOMEPAGE!

**Author's Note**: I'm new to this society and just realized that even here there are people who are impatient and/or unimaginative. I received quite a bit of a bashing (it was an unfair fight guys, she had weapons and he didn't but if he did, she'd be dead in less than a millisecond because Levi-friggin'-Heichou is goddamned **_Levi-Friggin'-Heichou_**; no matter how flighty my mind is and how many possible dimensions there are out there, reality can do nothing against Levi-friggin'-Heichou being **_Levi-Friggin'-Heichou_**) for this fic and to those of you who are doing it on purpose with a reasonable reason and can face up to it, kindly read the two points below.

Point 1: I received a review calling me a dumbass just because I invented something up for this fic that completely defies the current **_Sacred Canon Rules and Ground Rules of the World of Isayama Hajime's Shingeki no Kyojin_** and I just wanna say that there's a reason why fanfictions are called "fan_fictions_." A die-hard supporter of an ongoing/finished story that isn't hers/his (hence the "fan" part of the word) conjures dreamstuff out of the air based on the world/characters of that story (hence the "fiction" part of the word), therefore defining the words "fanfiction author", which is you and me. Everyone consists of different views and points and it's no one's fault if we all have different opinions on different matters. If you don't like the way my imagination works, that's perfectly okay, but if you can't hold your tongue and respect that, you can leave. I'm not one to do or apply unreasonable and unnecessary stuff to the things I hold dear (such as this story) so if you think I'm being unreasonable and unnecessary, please see Point 2.

Point 2: I said it once (not in these exact words, but hey) and I'll say it again: Good things come to those who wait. The best books I've read don't give up their secrets all at once and I'm seriously striving to become a full-fledged writer of original fiction someday, so I practice and apply that fact to my works, no matter how sucky the practice and application goes. If you aren't patient enough to watch my baby grow, you can always come back in a few years when it's done. I'm flattered that you people actually notice the reality flaws of this story but before you waste your time on bombarding me with skeptic questions in an attempt to humiliate me, I suggest you watch out for the updates for explanations on the topics you find mysterious/straight-out wrong/seemingly pointless at the moment. If you still have a problem with the story even after an explanation for a certain matter has been provided, please refer to Point 1.

And to those of you who are kind enough to hide your pissed-offedness over me and continue on bearing with my air-headedness and slow pacing just to see what happens next, from the bottom of my heart to the tips of my twitchy, calloused, typist's fingers, thank you. You will not be sorry.

P.S. I made a pact not to read a single SnK update until I conclude this so that I won't hesitate to follow this through and finish it. The last chapter I read was the 55th (but I understand that Levi's an Ackerman now – thank you, "our-admins-promise-not-to-freakin'-spoil-you" Facebook fan pages!) so just a word of caution: henceforth, this story will no longer match any of the brand-new presented **_Sacred Canon Rules and Ground Rules of the World of Isayama Hajime's Shingeki no Kyojin_** from Chapter 56 and beyond. It's basically "Shingeki no Kyojin Daydreaming of style" from here on out, so refer to the two points above and please don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Decision**

Eren watched Mikasa as she entered the boys' room; he had been able to turn his head on her approach but everything below his neck still felt numb.

"Are you alright Eren?" she asked, placing the solitary chair from the corner to the door's left next to his bunk and seating herself. "Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine Mikasa," he said, struggling in vain to try and make his fingers twitch. "I just can't move myself, that's all."

She took his hand in hers. He didn't feel anything. "Why did you disobey me Eren?"

Eren felt an irritable heat creep up his face. Ever since he awoke, there had been nothing in his head but the two seconds it took for him to get smashed against a tree and half die because of a single kick to his gut. And now, here he was, lying in bed and being a nuisance while everyone else was up and about, not being a bother, not slowing anyone down. He gritted his teeth in frustration and turned away from his sister. Was he really _that _weak?!

"I just wanted to help. Sorry. If that's what you want to hear," he added in a huff.

"Eren, I- I should be the one to apologize."

He turned back to face Mikasa and blinked at her guilt-ridden face. "I failed to protect you, Eren. I wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry. I promise I'll do better next time. Please forgive me."

Eren felt his face crinkle in confusion. Mikasa? Weak? That's impossible. "What are you talking about?"

She shook her head and turned away. All the anger that rumbled around in his chest instantly turned into guilt at the sight of the tears hovering at the corners of her eyes. He tried to move his arms to sit up and wipe her tears then remembered his condition.

"Don't worry, I'm not mad at you. It's okay now," he said a little feebly. "Besides, I'm sure Levi-heichou beat the crap out of him, right?"

The change overcame Mikasa so suddenly that Eren was almost frightened. Her tears left as quickly as they came and a cold light made her jet black eyes even darker. What unsettled Eren the most, though, was the vicious looking smirk that crooked her lips by the merest fraction of an inch. "Yes," she said, as if speaking to herself and not to him, staring shadily ahead of her. "Yes, we did."

"W-well," said Eren with cheer he didn't feel, "no harm done then! So you should stop feeling sorry for yourself now… I mean, if you still feel that way."

He stared at her, bothered by the steely look on her face and didn't look away until he was sure she had softened back to her usual self. He released a breath he didn't know he had been holding when she turned back to face him, with a small smile he certainly hadn't seen in a long time. "Thank you, Eren. Don't worry. She couldn't hurt you anymore. I made sure of it"

"She?" he asked incredulously.

"Knock, knock!" came a voice from the door partnered with two corresponding taps on the strip of wood that was the door. "Is this a bad time? Or should I say, are you two decent?"

"Ah, no and yes, Connie!" said Eren loudly, wondering why his comrade would ask such a strange question. He turned to look questioningly at Mikasa but was surprised to see her staring at her lap with her cheeks lightly dusted with pink. "You can come in!" she cried, her expression hidden beneath her bangs.

The door partly opened and Connie's bandaged head peeked in. "Oh, good," he whispered to them with a sheepish grin. "It's really Jean who's coming in; he just made me knock 'cause he wants to be 'discreet,' whatever the hell that means." He turned his head slowly to look over his shoulder at someone Eren couldn't see from inside the room. "Hey Lover Boy! Tell Sasha she can scream for me now, so I can tell them-" Eren heard a _whump_ and a loudly whispered "_Shut up!_" followed by a pained wail from Connie.

"'Discreet' means 'respectful,' Connie!" resounded Sasha's voice one storey below them. "I asked Levi-heichou! By the way, am I supposed to say I need you down here now?"

"Damn you both!" yelled Jean's voice and a moment later, the door fully opened to reveal his flushed face. "Erwin-danchou's here," he mumbled, staring at the direction of Mikasa's feet. "Levi-heichou wants everyone downstairs to talk about what to do with the prisoner."

"We'll be with you in a minute," said Mikasa, rising to bring Eren to his feet. The brunet felt an embarrassed heat steal across his face. If there was anyone in the world he didn't want to see the state he was in, it would have to be horse-faced rival. "Can you leave us for a moment?" he asked.

He didn't understand why Jean reddened even more. "Why?" he asked with unnecessary sharpness.

"Because Eren wants his privacy," answered Mikasa almost as heatedly as Jean.

"I don't want to fight with you Mikasa," he said, surpassing pink and going scarlet. "But if you keep babying him-"

"She isn't babying me!" yelled Eren, wishing he could push himself up and stand. "What the hell is your problem?"

"Oh, I don't know, Eren!" Jean spat back. "Why don't you tell me?"

Before Eren could answer, the door yawned wide to expose their Squad's healer. She pushed past Jean without so much as a glance at him and said, "Mikasa. What exactly have you done to her?" There was something in her bright blue eyes that unnerved Eren, as if she had seen terrors she didn't want to believe in but chose not to care no matter how affected she was. Suddenly, Krista Lenz's phony, cheery smiles didn't seem to be so bad compared to Historia Reiss's current reptilian expression.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mikasa said coldly.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about," said Historia simply.

Mikasa bowed slightly and Eren saw that the terrible sneer was back on her face. "I did," she spoke, her voice a decibel lower. "what I had to do."

* * *

_"What are you going to do to me?" she yelled, stuffing her bleeding hands into the stockings she wore. This time, the doctor was alone again, and in his hands was a hypodermic needle._

_"Don't worry," said the doctor, with his blank voice and face. "This will make you forget everything."_

_The little girl stopped crying and asked, "Is that my medicine, doctor?"_

_"Yes."_

_She walked towards him slowly, unearthing her hidden hands and she watched the clear liquid leave its thin tube and enter her arm._

* * *

Something made of cloth and chilly and wet was pressed against the girl's stomach. The ground she was lying on was stone cold and slightly moist. Something hard and heavy kept her wrists from touching the ground. She knew what they were without looking at them. Shackles of a chain.

The air smelled damp and dark and death. A warm orange glow from the gloom pervaded her eyes when she rolled them behind their lids. Probably from lit torches on their brackets on the walls.

She felt the inside of her mouth with her tongue. There were a lot of cuts on both; the deepest were at the sides of her cheeks. They were still raw and they stung when she licked them. Her lips tasted funny, like someone had just rubbed ointment over the spots that had been cut or bruised.

She brought her hands to her face and poked the parts that were puffy or had gauze taped over them. She winced. Wrong move. Her nose was miraculously whole and there was a bandage wrapped around her head. The thing in her shirt against her stomach was a pouch full of… what was it called? Snow? No, snow is soft, and it melts once it had stopped falling from the sky. This was cold but hard and wet and it numbed the pain in her abdomen considerably well. A… as… i… ice? Yes, that was it. It had been so long…

She coughed. The air within the Walls stank and the one that circulated in a dungeon beneath the ground untouched by sun, wind and rain did even more so. If they had decided to throw her out into the Wasteland in the same condition instead of burying her beneath the earth in a place with a ceiling and no windows, she wouldn't feel half as bad.

She reached for her goggles that were slung around her neck then remembered they weren't there. She covered her eyes with her hands. Her heart felt very uncomfortable and pained and rage bubbled furiously in her stomach but emotions were messy things that weren't worth the time and effort to acknowledge and deal with, so she pushed herself up with much silent cringing and began to consider the situation she was in.

She was injured underground and undoubtedly behind bars (she hadn't opened her eyes yet) with no weapons or any possible means of escape. There were at least eight people in the building – the Shifter, the girl Mikasa, the boy Armin, the ponytailed brunette and the bald boy who crashed against each other in pursuing her, and "Jean," the one whom "Krista" was tending to when _he _interfered (the girl grit her teeth and clenched her fists until she was sure she made a permanent dent on her temporary palms) – who were deciding what to do with her somewhere up above.

She leaned back and closed her eyes, focusing on the vibrations throbbing ever so slightly against the thick stone wall. Beyond the hurried pattering of mice's feet one floor above her were cushioned pulses, making it difficult for her to determine just how many people were seated wearing boots around something still and solid. Most of the heartbeats were normal but serious, but two were excited, one was enraged and the other apathetic. She stilled her own breathing and plunged deeper into the void… there were ten people above her, but one was moving about; the other rose and followed the first towards her while everybody else rose and gathered around an area (possibly a doorway). Two were left on their seats but right now, they didn't matter.

She opened her eyes and scowled. She thought that there might have been some time for her to plan and indulge in her revenges but she heard a door open somewhere above her to the right and footsteps. She felt the painful tinge of apprehension in her gut: it had been eight years since she last conversed with her kind and now…

She shook her head as if dislodging birds nesting on her hair. She was a doer, not a thinker, not that there was ever any time for her to ever stop and think before anyway. Thinking and worrying won't help her now, won't give her back her strength or weapons, won't bind them all tight so that she could kill them slowly and easily. _Just take whatever they dish out_: that was one of the first and last thingshe had told had been, was, and always will be the battle plan, won't it?

By the time the two men have positioned themselves in front of her, she had managed to look as if she had been reclining, bored and listless, against the wall furthest from them since the beginning of time. Her interrogator was back but the tall blond man who was missing his right arm was a stranger. She eyed the empty sleeve of his leather jacket passively.

"Hello, Ruska," said the blonde man. She flinched at the sound of her name but didn't let them see and the tips of her fingers made even deeper impressions into her palms. "Levi has been telling me about you."

She glared at Levi who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. She took in the furrow between his eyes, the crease his frown made on his face and wondered how she could have ever mistaken the short man for her traveling companion. She looked back at the blonde. "My name is Erwin Smith, commander of the Scouting Legion. We are a group of people who aim to wipe Titans of the face of the earth." His empty sleeve fluttered faintly. She felt like she should at least feel the tiniest hint of sympathy. "I have a few questions to ask you. I would like for you to answer them," he said.

There was a bench next to the wall facing her cell and he sat down. "Where have you lived before going outside the Walls?"

She looked at him, wondering what they'd do to her if she didn't answer or lied. _Either way, I'm killing you too._ "I've never been here," she intoned tonelessly.

"You mean you've been outside all your life?"

"Yes."

"By 'outside,' do you mean in a village southeast of Wall Maria?"

She clenched her teeth. "I left."

"Five years ago?"

She raised an eyebrow. The caravan was five years ago which means… which means she's hit the jackpot. "Ten," she said, suppressing a triumphant grin.

"Are you a Shifter?"

She permitted him to see how disgusted she was. "No," she said. He stared deep into her eyes with icy blue spheres. He was the first to drop his gaze.

"I see. What to you are Shifters?"

She let her façade turn into dust. Finally, someone was asking the right questions. "Game."

"Less than animals you mean?"

She smirked wider. Levi shifted at the corner of her eye and she pretended not to notice.

"Why did you leave your village?"

Her mouth dropped down. "To hunt Titans," she said. It definitely wasn't a lie but it was the reason why she was born, not why she left.

"Alone?"

She reconstructed her mask and instinctively stared down at her feet. "Not at first." She didn't want this conversation anymore.

"And how long have you been by yourself?"

"Eight years."

"I see. That's very impressive. Can you kill humans?"

She was startled at the sudden change of topic but regained composure in a second. Levi visibly turned his head to look at his comrade. "I do Titans better," she said.

"But could you?"

She realized the gravity of the question and raised her bowed head. "If I wanted to," she growled low, staring deep into the man's soul. She felt Levi's eyes set fire to her hair.

Something flickered behind her asker's eyes but he didn't flinch as she stared straight back. Somewhere above them, the ceiling had a crack, and she listened to the water _drip_, _drip_, _drip_, down to the floor, endless and hypnotic.

The man Smith smiled. "I like that. Now, let's talk about the conditions of your release."

She wanted to say something snide, to drawl that she didn't need conditions, or raise her chin and say that she didn't want to negotiate, but she had nothing to back up her claims, no weapons, no strength. She pressed her lips together and glared at them both. "Get to the point."

"We need," he said, inching closer to the edge of the bench and lowering himself so that their eyes were almost level with each other, "an assassin."

…

_30 minutes earlier_

"An assassin?"

Historia started in her seat and looked around her, perplexed as to what she was doing at the dinner table with everybody else gathered around. It was Hange's incredulous voice that rudely jerked her out of her reverie and in a second, she remembered what had happened the past half hour, from Levi commending her on how she found the single strand of scarlet that stood out in the field of gold that was the straw heap in the stables after his initial report to Erwin about the intruder, to the moment she drifted off after denying that their gatecrasher was a Shifter based on her time on healing her, much to their scientist's dismay (Historia had only ever been with her twice before but she had been able to correctly interpret, with Levi's non-verbal confirmation, that the maniacal gleam that had shone in the older woman's coffee-colored eyes when she asked Historia her question meant that she had been very much looking forward to dissecting the stranger) and everyone else's delight.

"Erwin," continued Hange. "I understand that we need to look as pretty as possible to the public, but you specifically said we'll keep our hands clean of the matter."

"Yes," said Erwin opposite her at the other end of the table. "As I told Pixis, no human being's demise would result from our revolt. However, blood _will _be shed, and if she agrees, we will have our prisoner do it for us."

Everyone pondered on this in silence which was quickly broken by Levi. "Attempted murder?" he asked.

Hange murmured a small _Ohh _in understanding and smiled as Erwin nodded. "I get your drift. Good one, old man. But what if we lose control of her?"

"You underestimate me, Hange," said Levi, shooting something that was almost a glare towards his fellow squad leader. "Ackerman and I are more than enough to keep her in check."

"Yeah, but still, even if she's just your average human, how on earth do you explain the state of your arm?"

"Please hold on for a second," queried Sasha as Levi opened his mouth to retort. "Could you please explain it for the rest of us?"

"We're going to make her wreak havoc for us over a long stretch of time," Armin answered, facing to his left to converse with his comrade better, "always preferably ending with a narrow escape, to really get on the MP's nerves. And then, when everyone's had enough of the government's apparent lack of control, we'll pretend to catch her while she's in the middle of something really important-"

"To make us look like the good guys!" finished Connie from between Historia and Sasha, finally getting a grip on the conversation.

"Erwin," said Levi, "If the bitch didn't show up, who were you planning to hire?"

"The thugs of the underworld are too fickle," he said, "I fear that they might give us away after a short while once they find someone willing to pay them more than their original client. My primary plan was to risk the chance of detection and assemble some of our people with you leading them." He shot a knowing look at Levi and the latter glared at his lap. Historia didn't miss the shady _Don't ask _look Eren provided his Squad mates and the way Hange was avoiding eye contact by wiping her glasses with a handkerchief. She wondered why that was necessary.

"So we get her to do the dirty work," said Levi, still not looking at Erwin. "I suppose you'd want me to teach her. But what do we do with her afterwards?"

"That is for time to decide," said Erwin. "If necessary, we will force her to work with us –"

"We've done that already," said Levi. Two seats to his right, Mikasa's snorted and her lips quirked upward humorlessly. Between them, Eren swallowed nervously and seemed to shrink a few inches.

"– until either Historia rises as queen or we march to the gallows." The party shuffled its feet and huffed or gulped nervously but Historia could not share their anxiety. She mirrored Mikasa, Levi and Hange's grim nods but felt only numbness as she did so.

"How long are you planning to stretch this, Erwin?" asked Hange. "With your permission, I'd like to do more research on her things and I'm going to need some time."

"Granted," (Hange pulled both fists towards her body and whispered a little "Yes!) "We'll need her service for at least a few months;" (here, Hange repeated the action but this time with a more pronounced, "_Yes_!" and an,"I love you so, so much, Erwin!) "that and the additional time it would take her to heal from interrogation, practice and dry runs –"

"Erwin-danchou," interrupted Mikasa, speaking for the first time. Her earlier sadistic smugness had vanished over "a few months" and now there was nothing on her face but horror over the prospect of having her Eren sleep under the same roof with his would-have-been killer. "Erwin-danchou, I understand the gravity of our situation and how important it is that we avoid detection. However, I strongly believe that this person is not to be trusted. We do not know who she is, her affiliates, or even if she really is from Outside. How do we know if she won't betray us the first chance she gets?"

"And what do you propose we do?" Levi asked.

"Kill her, Levi-heichou," she said, the ghost of suppressed rage overshadowing her face. "For all we know, she might be a spy from the Military Police and the longer we keep her here, the more she will know about us." She turned back to Erwin. "Sir, I don't know how she acquired the strange things she owns or how Heichou's bullets rebounded off her, but I believe that keeping her here is dangerous, not only to Eren and Historia, but to the future of the whole Scouting Legion as well and in that effect, of Humanity."

"That is true," said Erwin before Jean was able to second Mikasa. "However, if this operation succeeds with her help, mankind's survival for at least a hundred more years will be ensured. Terminating her without so much as an assessment of her abilities might as well confirm the downfall of life within the walls. I will not see that happen."

"Erwin-danchou," said Mikasa anxiously, desperation coloring her voice, "I understand that I am a mere soldier with no right to tell her authorities what to do and I apologize for my shamelessness. But I believe it's too risky-"

"Then it is a risk we'll have to take," said Erwin curtly and calmly. Mikasa bowed her head and squeezed her lips together. Eren gave her a slightly exasperated look and she answered with one of her signature _But Eren-! _gazes. "I understand your fears, Mikasa," Erwin continued, this time a little more warmly. "However, I am confident that Squad Levi has ample strength to subdue her if necessary." Historia watched Sasha and Connie exchange looks while Eren stared quizzically at Jean's bandaged shoulder (which was, for the seventh time for the day, bleeding) as the latter glared at him as if to say _At least _I_ haven't been knocked cold without so much as a fight, spineless bastard!_ from the corner of her eye.

Armin seemed to have been observing this too because he said, "Don't worry guys. If she gets rough anytime, all we need to do is hold her things over a fire."

"Correction, you're holding _one _of her less significant things over a fire," said Hange. "The rest of her stuff belongs to me, now," she continued in a low voice, the light reflected off her glasses making it impossible to see her eyes. Sitting next to her, Historia found herself edging away from her crazed grin towards Connie as Armin inched closer to Mikasa, his safer seatmate.

"What are we using, Armin?" asked Eren.

"This," answered Levi, pulling out what looked like a worn notebook bound in blackened leather and placing it on the table. Asides from her clothes, it seemed to be the only normal item she owned that didn't present any sudden, unpleasant surprises. "I don't know why she's so attached to it, but it worked wonders more than any amount of hits we gave her. She'll do anything we want her to in order to keep this safe. Good job by the way, Armin," he finished, turning to his subordinate.

"Th-thanks, sir," answered the blonde, blushing red and glancing down at the bit of the table in front of him. "I figured since almost everything she has is made to hurt, it had to be something personal such as one of her notebooks. This is the only one of its kind that has drawings instead of notes and it was hidden in a secret pocket in the innermost section of her bag. I deduced she deemed it precious and brought it forward."

"So, we threaten to burn that thing to ashes," said Jean, inclining his head to the rectangular patch of darkness that disappeared back into Levi's jacket's inner pocket, "and expect her to do everything we say? I don't mean to sound disrespectful, sir, but..." _Are you honestly serious about this? _Historia almost heard him say.

"Yeah," said Levi in front of him. "You brats don't let it bother you. The Scouting Legion's seen far more unreliable shit from Erwin here, and he's still breathing. I can't promise you anything but don't worry." Everyone seemed only slightly comforted by this save for Historia and Eren, who looked at his lap with the face he wore during the quiet times of the day that allowed remembering and regret.

"Hey, Levi," ventured Hange, "I don't want to scare the wits out of anyone, but about your arm–"

"It's time you saw her, Erwin," he snapped, rising from his chair as he did so and taking a loaded candleholder from one of the room's side tables they had placed there for that very purpose. "I assume you'll be busy working with shitty eyes, Armin?"

"Y-yes, sir," said Armin as the grey eyed man lit his stick of wax with one of the candles at the center of their table.

"Well then," he said as Erwin stood up to join him down the trapdoor, "Sasha, Connie, you'll have to settle among yourselves who'll guard her when we resurface. No, Mikasa, I know you have plans to gun her down and I'm not letting you down there. You and Jean take your posts outside. You two switch places in the next six hours," he finished with a nod towards Sasha and Connie before his companion shut the trapdoor above their heads.

Everybody stared at the entrance to the cellar in silence until Hange rose from her seat and stretched. "Well," she said, "so much for worrying over a man's well-being. Come on Armin, I've got a date with my dropper and Petri dishes and I don't want you to miss out on the fun."

Historia rose after observing the glare Jean sent Eren who needed to be brought to his feet by Mikasa. As she followed the former out the door, the last thing she heard of the dining room was Sasha and Connie absorbed in a game of rock-paper-scissors.

…

"I trust you'll keep her in check?" asked Erwin.

Levi scoffed. "Obviously," he said, gazing at the sputtering flame that lit their upward path.

"Send me a word the moment she fully recovers. I would like to be present the first time you train her." _Train her. _Somehow, to Levi's ears, the last two words sounded terrible. "What do you think of her?" Erwin added, sparing the shorter man a sideward glance.

"She's the perfect little cunt," Levi answered readily. "But nothing I can't handle."

"Aa. That's good to hear."

"Do you believe her?"

"Perhaps."

"Tsst. Somehow I knew you'd say that." Erwin smirked good-naturedly.

They continued their journey in silence. Levi thought his day couldn't possibly get any worse until the blonde decided to open his mouth halfway up the last flight of stairs.

"But you know what? The first time we met… She kind of reminds me of you back then."

Levi's footing nearly missed the final step of the way. He turned to look at Erwin to see if he was just shitting with him, but the tiny, irritating smile on his face said that he wasn't.

"Che," he scoffed angrily, throwing down the trapdoor with a despondent _bang _using his left hand.

* * *

from the Diary of Historia Reiss, October 1:

… I don't know what to think of her. She's definitely the big thing I've asked for last night, but I don't know if I should be grateful or not.

I patched her up after they finished torturing her and she's worse than the two men who got their nails and teeth peeled off. It looked to me like they've been dancing on the left side of her face and her stomach's so beaten up, I'm surprised she isn't dead.

There's no end to Jean and Heichou's bleeding. I've tried everything to make it _stop_ but I only managed to prevent them from bathing in their blood by putting them in casts to keep them from moving. I'm pissed. It feels weird yet strangely liberating. Must ask Eren if that's normal, not that he understands. Nobody does, of course, but at least they try and sympathize. It could be worse.

On the other hand, she looked like a little child to me. Lost and frightened, probably alone judging by the way she'd been carrying her life around with her. Kind of just like me, really. Unwanted, but she's tough, surviving eight years alone in the wild with Titans like that (I don't know why I believe her. Maybe I _am_ starting to crack like I suggested to me days ago). Armin said her name is Ruska.

I wonder what she dreams of.


	4. Chapter 4: Inertia

**Author's Note**: Sorry for the long wait. I've been to two separate vacations where I've been too busy selfie-stalkingand dodging raindrops with my cousins to think of writing (NO REGRETS _MGA PAPA-'INSANS_!) and the interval between these excursions saw to my attendance of college entrance exam review classes in the city thrice a week for a month (which is just a fancy phrase for "I've been having my head murdered and my body drained for eleven whole days stretched over the last month of _summer vacation_, what did I do to deserve such torture,"), so that even though my heart had always been in the mood, my brain couldn't get into the right mode to write even during the weekends. Making this and _**Sisters **_consisted of 99.99% tear-your-hair-out-in-frustration-over-how-a-single-sentence-takes-half-an-hour-to-create-and-just-two-seconds-for-you-to-reread-it-and-go-"WHAT-THE-FRIGGIN'-HECK-IS-THIS-IT'S-EMBARASSING-OMG-WHY-DO-I-EVEN-WRITE-I'M-SUCH-A-LOSER-SOMEBODY-TELL-ME-WHY-I-HAVEN'T-GIVEN-UP-ON-LIFE-YET" kind of hustle and 0.01% enjoyment. Even so they both made me smile during the Final Edit so I guess they turned out pretty much okay. I'll be posting a lot more often this month since I have more time (I'm semi-homeschooled – classes occur once a week but we are given a lot of homework each meeting) and my feels are all a-flutter (WHY ISABEL AND FARLAN WHY).

I have no idea if white wolves still exist (there were some in the polar regions long ago I think) but hey, if giant wild boars live in Trost, why not, right?

The needle-related thingies are only very loosely based on the actual process of acupuncture. And yes, this has been inspired by Haku of the Mist's senbon-shootin'-way-of-fighting thingie.

To the latest anon reviewer of chapter 3: That's very kind of you (I CAN'T BREATHE OMG QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM,./';[]\\-0987654321`— I mean, *clears throat* thanks for the compliment), but as for your Eren-Historia request, I'm gonna make this short and sweet and say I'm afraid it ain't happening here, dear. I'm a solid ErenMika-er all the way (although Eren's so painfully ignorant there's a bigger chance of him ending up with the Ape Titan than becoming Levi's boyversionofhoweverwayMikasa'srelatedtohim-in-law [SEVEN MONTH-OLD HEADCANON CONCERNING MY TWO FAVORITE CHARACTERS FINALLY HAPPENS I LOVE YOU ISAYAMA-SENSEI IF YOU COULD JUST BRING PETRA BACK I'D LOVE YOU EVEN MORE]) and if Historia has to end up with someone, I'd like it to be Armin, I don't know why. (I feel like I've offended more than half of the world with that previous sentence. I'd like to apologize. Please lower your weapons now.) HOWEVER I plan on making Eren and Historia spend lots of time talking and helping each other solve their own personal problems so that they become close and really start valuing each other. Speaking in a (trying hard to be) professional point of view, though, an Eren-Historia centered fic would be an interesting challenge so maybe I'll make you a separate story about that in _**Black Chocolate **_someday (\~^/w/^~/).

And to those of you who think my character portrayals are OOC, _gomen nasai _and_ patawad _from the bottom of my heart (that's "sorry" in two different languages), but know that I am trying my hardest to successfully depict our beloveds' essences. These are, after all, original situations which they've never been in before, so I have nothing to base the way they'll behave in a certain scenario on save for the how I've perceived 28 episodes and 55 chapters and on how I've personally interpreted their unique personalities (am I the only one here who heard Darius Zackeley speak for the first time and instantaneously thought of Atticus Finch especially when he removed his coat later on? Please don't tell me I'm the only who gets this in-parenthesis thing) and interactions with one another (who else thinks Rico Brzenska and Ian Deitrich would have been so perfect with each other? I have nothing to back my claims but just think about it. _Really _think about it. And then, if you aren't busy, cry with me when you're done and let's chat) which is really fairly difficult. Please continue bearing with me; I _will_ get better at this!

* * *

**Inertia**

It has been a whole week but she was still alive.

Her body felt like an inescapable nightmare but it was as tolerable as bur on her hair compared to the torturous cesspool of never-ending voices that gnawed on her mind without stopping. After years of running away from death, she had at first been more than happy that at last her whole person would soon achieve the rest she wanted, but after seven days of ceaseless agony, she started to wonder if she had already passed away sometime between alternating nauseous consciousness and troubled sleep and was now, in fact, in eternal hell.

After her captor and his commander left her with unspoken threats and promises, she had retreated to the right corner opposite the cell door and sat rigid against it with her arms wrapped tight around her legs. Since then, she had hardly changed position except to occasionally soundlessly rise to piss against the corner opposite her and drink the water they slipped through her cell's bars twice a day when her current guard went on a five-minute potty break or had to come upstairs to inform their replacement that it was time to change shifts. Her highly developed sense of smell had made results of the former activity unbearable and more than once she had retched on the floor, in the same stiff position, a disgusting blend of water and acid from the smell alone. And then that too would add to the sinister blend of odors they detachedly forced to breathe and she vomited so much on the second night that they actually allowed her out of her cell in order to move her to another one. Even there, the air still felt cramped and forced, like the oxygen itself was wheezing from the lack of sunlight, gasping from the lack of rain.

Even for her, it was cold and this did not help her bones which were already suffering from the lack of motion. They let her out to get to the toilet once a day after her switch (with a gun against her head, of course), but walking a hundred and seven steps each day with her hands shackled behind her back was like tossing around in her sleep compared to the daily dose of physical activity her body was used to performing each day. Thanks to the small blonde girl who tended to her each night, the wounds she received from her torturers were all considerably far down the road of recovery by the fifth day but her stomach still collapsed on itself at the slightest movement of her torso and the skin surrounding the deep gash on her cheek had begun to start hurting as well no matter how much merciful bags of ice she pressed against her abdomen each night or how much ointment her cheek received.

If that wasn't enough, she had to deal with the fact that she was living _underground _where the sole paranoia of the ceiling falling on her head gradually transformed into an almost desperate hope for eternal escape. She learned to look forward to her bathroom trips, knowing this took her closer to the sky and when they pushed her upstairs with the end of their guns to do just that, she wholeheartedly savored the little eternities when she happened to pass by a window – it had been so long, she had almost forgotten what glass and curtains were – as a draft was passing through. Even then, she did not have the freedom to take pleasure in the wind's sweet touch or rejoice in the fact that she wasn't as trapped as she was beneath the ground: everyone of her guards save perhaps for the blonde boy who guessed the importance of her sketchbook seemed to always be in a hurry to take her back to her suffering and she would be shoved back down to her cell with the end of their rifle and locked up for another 23 hours and 55 minutes of almost absolute stillness and silence.

But she only wished it for there was none of that at all. Outside, on the surface, the wind sang, the trees whispered, the birds whistled, the animals chattered to one and the Titans stomped and roared and moaned as she killed them, all without stop. The cacophony that had surrounded her previous life wasn't noise at all for it was one with the world and as natural as starspeak and there was never a need to tune them out for they were one with her existence as she was with them. But here in her cramped cell, far from the eyes of the sun and moon, here was a chaos of unnecessary sound and volume: there were _people_ surrounding her almost each second and they breathed as loudly as they should speak, spoke as loudly as they should scream and had footsteps that could attract a whole herd of giants to ultimately save her from her suffering. There was nothing she could focus her mind on in order to block out the noises, save perhaps how utterly trapped she was and the hopelessness of her situation, and when she tried stuffing her palms to her ears against her noise, her hunting instincts would kick in and force her hands to ricochet off the sides of her head, alarmed by the unnatural way that sound was coming in muffled and broken.

She had been almost fully oriented on the night after they made her switch cells and had been able to successfully and silently free her right hand from its leash by faithfully attacking with her teeth one of the many rings of interconnected metals that joined it to the wall when no one was looking. They had watched her a lot more closely after that but she had come to observe that the night guards were not at all fond of tea and were prone to falling asleep halfway during their shift and she had been able to free her other arm two days later at the expense of the general lack of pain in her mouth. At first, it had been fine to see them watch her more fearfully than before despite their gallant attempts to cover up cowardice with aggression, but robbed of a definite purpose she could act upon, she found herself suddenly forced upon the arduous task of finding a way to run by observing. But she was a doer, not a thinker, unused to analyzing things and scheming, and her head quickly learned to spin out of control and dwell on eight years worth of suppressed emotions, tinkering with the words that go along with it in order to form solid, disturbingly real thoughts instead.

She thought at first it would be better than gritting her teeth and embracing the din that casually bound her in a constant state of frigid horror, but after allowing her brain to understand in words that she was _hurt _and _frightened_ and _angry_, she began to force her mind to accept and dissect the many shouted conversations being held above her but it was too late: there was no turning back. She became mad at her kind for creating Titans and Shifters in the first place, mad at the Shifter for existing, mad at _that man _for looking like _him_, mad at _them _for making her suffer, mad at her own uncontrollable bloodlust to get them all killed and desperation and stupidity, mad at the world, mad at life. The fact that she had to rely on her captors in order to continue breathing made everything much worse than it already was so that any new fact, such as where the lightest threading footsteps go to after dinner each night or how many times the stride of a 5'1" person zips in and out of the bathroom in a day gets smothered by emotion until she would snap out of her sulking long enough to realize she had already forgotten the knowledge she had just obtained.

Slowly and then all at once her whole being was affected. She would unintentionally fall asleep and wake, slightly better than she was before her slumber but her regained mental strength would crumble into dust she got too tired to be angry for the day and her mind learned to dwell on the sordid, disgraceful present. She would drink the water they gave her, for water was a gift from the earth and not from them, but she would ignore the bread they balanced on top of her mug despite her stomachs fierce pleadings. She would pay no attention to any attempts they made to communicate with her and murder them with her eyes if they wouldn't stop; she never let them hear her or see her moving about save for when their healer was working on her wounds. If there was one thing she knew, it was that she had her pride and she was proud of it – it took her five years of her life to learn how to hold her head high up and she wasn't going to let a bunch of bratty shit-sucking worms ruin that.

But now, on the eighth night, as she listened to her current guard climb up the stairs for his routinary potty break, she let a shuddering sigh escape her throat and lips and hid her face in her hands. All the rage that she thought she might be able to make last until the next age had now completely dried out, leaving her nothing but tiredness. Stomach threatening to devour her very soul, she wished her famished body would stop protesting against her head. She stared at her night's ration on the floor – they only took it away to replace it with a new one to minimize the number of times they had to descend and deal with her – and imagined what the dry crust on the rim of her empty cup would taste like; it's been so long that she'd forgotten. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't notice if she took a just a little bite…

Somehow, she ended up lying on the floor. The brown hunk of baked wheat looked and felt like miles away. Her master's laws required her to try until the bitter end so she pushed off against the slab against stone to reach for it… and fell down again.

She was too empty to feel angered, too electrified with exhaustion to defy the here and now. Somehow, there was nothing more she could feel save for something that might be sadness. _If only,_ she thought, if only she had her – _Shut it_, her head whispered. _Acknowledge no weaknesses. Use no excuses. _If she had enough strength, she would have genially snorted back at the voice for existing in the first place._ Fight_, it continued. _Get up and resist. Struggle. Push back. Fight._

_I don't want to_, she thought back. _I'm tired and I can't sleep. I _want_ to sleep. But it just wouldn't come._ _Ah, well_, the former voice continued as she let her eyes close without resistance. _You've started _talking_ to yourself. It won't be long now._

* * *

It has been a whole week and still no one was used to her presence.

For one, there was her indirect influence over the whole squad. Everyone was constantly tense and on guard; the sight of _Mikasa Ackerman_ of all possible people suddenly cringing in pain and clutching her chest in the middle of a task was more than enough to remind them of the danger that lurked beneath their feet who, although currently weakened, would be more than capable of destroying them all the moment they make a mistake. Deciding who would guard her prison or give her meals next led to contests, debates and gambles on which face of the coin or die would stare at the ceiling or which card would be drawn – petty scuffles that would have been funny if it weren't for the fact that the loser would have to spend the next twelve hours or thirty seconds within three meters of their criminal. A whole day of negotiations, deals and blackmail were inadequate to make a guard and server schedule they could all agree on ("But my head still _hurts_!" "You stopped wearing bandages ages ago, Connie, be reasonable." "Two days isn't ages, stupid." "Shut it bastard, you're not even involved in this!" "Don't you tell me what to do, horseface!" or "But what if she bites me while I'm slipping her rations through the bars?" "_Bites _you? I understand you're afraid of her, but now you're just being paranoid!" "But haven't you ever seen her _look _at you, Armin? A cornered white wolf who's already been wounded has absolutely nothing against her!" "But… but she's _human_, Sasha, and I really don't get your point…?"); however, Levi's presence considerably quickened the arrival of conclusions to these skirmishes and so the wilier ones of the five who were required to participate in these contests had learned to somehow drag their competition to where their captain was at the moment.

For another, there was the legacy of her capture: the damage she had done to Squad Levi. Although Eren, Mikasa, Sasha and Connie were all more or less back to normal by the second day, the conditions of Jean and Levi's respective injuries didn't worsen nor improve over seven days. No one was sure who was more annoyed, the two of them combined (although he never openly acknowledged his wounds, Levi's ever constant scowl deepened by a few degrees which made him look even more menacing than it already did and even though Jean never whined, his senseless screaming matches with Eren grew even more frequent each passing day) or Historia, who although wasn't suffering physically, was deeply affected by the fact that she was helpless over something that she took pride in, not just as she had when she was Krista Lenz but also now as her real self. This and the fact that she had to return to using her fake name – although everything seemed to point to the opposite direction, Mikasa took it upon herself to constantly remind them that they couldn't completely disregard how their guest might be a spy from the government and they were nagged on an hourly basis to never this, never that, and never use Krista's real name – gave her alternating fits of prickly rage that surprised and, more often than not, hurt those around her; startling oversensitivity that drove her to tears in the shadows of the stables when she thought no one was watching; and a dauntless, icy silence that worried her squad mates more than any amount of snappy retorts or hidden tears could.

And then, there was dealing with her itself. In twelve-hour-long shifts, a solitary guard would sit on a stool clutching a rifle to the right side of the bars of the cell at the furthest edge of the dungeon and occasionally look in through the bars to make sure their prisoner was still alive. Although they were supposed to make a log of the slightest change in her behavior, the only varied time of the day when she wasn't hunched against the right corner of her cell and staring at her worn boots would be when she would spare a sideward glance to look poisoned daggers at them when they made an attempt to talk to her. According to the logbook that only left its post on the current guard's lap to be studied by Levi each evening, this hadn't been happening ever since Armin was first assigned to give her dinner when she changed position for the first time and actually turned her head to kill him with her gaze when he had insisted on commencing a one-sided conversation with her despite the obvious warning signs after which the poor boy jumped out of his socks, made a stuttered excuse, and half-raced, half-tripped his way up the stairs. Meals were brought to her twice a day but when the next person in charge of her ration arrived at her cell, they would find the previous batch of bread and mug of water seemingly untouched and in the exact position where the last one in charge left it, although her cup would always be perfectly empty when they retrieved it.

Their most interesting situation with her, however, would have to have been on her third night, when Connie woke up to the sound of a _clang _in the wee hours of the morning on duty and walked in on her devotedly gnawing on the chain attached her right wrist while the one on her left sagged on the floor, its other half hanging limply from its clasp on the wall. At the sound of his gasp and shouted warnings, she had glared at him the glare of someone who has murder in her mind but can do nothing about it and then returned to her original posture without a single word. Eren then proposed she was moved somewhere else and Mikasa proposed she was tortured again but in the end, they went with Armin's suggestion to let it be as they just might end up with a dungeon completely devoid of any forms of personal restraint save for barred doors which they all thought would be rather unreliable. The next few days, they kept an even closer watch on her but they never caught her in the act again and on the night they had begun to relax again, history repeated itself with Jean as the witness: this time, he was returning from a short water break to find her massaging her bleeding gums with her fingers to the sound of her severed chains clinking on the floor.

This incident led for Levi to lend Krista his pistol when she made her nightly trips downstairs to tend to their convict's wounds. The original routine was to have the current guard point their gun at her head until their healer finished inspecting her body, applying ointment to her wounds, replacing her bandages, and watching her drink the medicine for her stomach, which they still retained for good measure. Curiously enough, the girl was always perfectly obedient during these examinations, and seeing that their physician's life was not in danger, Sasha had stopped reminding Krista to teach her what she knew about healing in order to avoid being capable enough to take the younger girl's place in performing the task as was Levi's orders.

Meanwhile, Hange's experimentation with the girl's things were, in her words, "going smoother than a comb sliding through Erwin's perfect hair – I swear, that man has _got_ to be wearing a wig, cheeky little- hey Levi, there you are, d'you wanna prove it with me the next time he comes around?" Although she refused to elaborate and insisted on giving the full report in Erwin's presence the next time he would be able to leave HQ and visit them in full assurance that no unwanted shadow was tailing him, she assured Squad Levi that two of the girl's belongings gave conclusive proof that there was a way to preserve Titan flesh postmortem, although she was yet to confirm the exact method of this preservation. After scheduling an interview with their "pet peeve" in her cell with Levi, the newest members of Squad Levi received their very first "Hange Treatment" and when Eren, who had gained wisdom from experience and walked away with Levi when he still had the chance, experimentally checked on them the next morning, he found his senior still happily chatting away about the unpredictability of life and its biggest mystery which was Titans while everybody else slouched on their chairs, staring at her with blank eyes and slack mouths or were otherwise dozing with their heads lolling over their chests, their laps collecting little drips of spit.

And now, on the eighth night, Eren idly watched Jean traipse his way from the bathroom down to the cellar and sighed as the trapdoor _snick_ed shut above his comrade. "Am I really not allowed to see her?" he asked. Knowing the disadvantages of Eren's fierce curiosity, Levi had prohibited the rest of his squad from telling the boy when their guest's nightly excursions took place to get him out of harm's way. One of the brunet's good traits, however, was that he was thrifty, and was therefore constantly armed with a powerful, silent weapon with plenty of ammunition to spare. Although it didn't take much to loosen Connie's tongue, it took almost a fourth of what was left of Eren's first wages to get him to promise he would curl it up tight behind clenched teeth, most especially towards Mikasa and Levi. Still, he got what he wanted, and on the fifth day since the capture at midnight, he hid behind the door of a spare room and waited for them to pass through his corridor. Candlelight and several torch's fires weren't exactly the ideal lighting to use to view things through a keyhole and Eren had been able to discern nothing of the girl save for that she was small and her very short hair was a shade of vivid red. He returned to the spot every night to watch her come and go but it wasn't enough, it would never be enough, and he hadn't had a night's sleep since, trying to picture her face from what Armin had told him.

"No, Eren," said Sasha the hundredth time that night.

"She doesn't hurt His- I mean, Krista when she patches her up," he almost whined. "And Heichou's busy and Mikasa's on guard outside. Just a tiny peek-"

"No, Eren," repeated Sasha as if she had practiced the proper way to say those two words in front of the mirror since time began. If he felt a little better, Eren might have rolled his eyes over the familiarity of her tone. "Have you been sticking to Mikasa again?" he asked.

The brunette blushed then grinned a little sheepishly. "Spot on! But how d'ya guess?"

"Beats me," he mumbled, placing crossing arms on the table and laying his chin on it to languidly watch Historia play chess with Connie. Levi had retired to his room early to do some paperwork but none of his juniors were feeling particularly sleepy just yet. They were gathered around the dinner table and Sasha was polishing her bow in front of Eren. "Are you sure that's all she _ever _does?" he insisted.

"That's the ninth time you've asked us that, Eren," said Connie, his fingers hovering over his knight and rook. "We told you already. She curls up against the corner and stares at her feet 24/7 save for when Krista makes her move around to fix her up, no big deal. We never see her sleeping or shitting but she must have, otherwise, she'd be long dead. I don't think I've even seen her change position save for when she was chewing on her chains." He made up his mind and brought his rook nine spaces forward. "She reminds me of our dog that way."

"What about you His- I mean, Krista?" said Eren. "Anything new about her?"

"Her cuts and bruises have all healed save for her left cheek which is infected," she said monotonously, her eyes roving across Connie's side of the board. "Her stomach's eating itself because she won't have what we feed her and since it's already wounded like that, it would be three days tops before the acid kills her." She moved her queen to the side and muttered "Checkmate," more to herself than to her opponent, who pummeled the table with his fists and cursed. Sasha, who had instinctively lifted her bow, can of wax and rag in time to spare them from the violent tremors that now toppled her seatmate's black chess pieces, said, "Ouch. That's 6-0, Connie, but at least you're starting to hold out a little longer. But Krista, I think Eren's talking about her behavior?"

"She stares at the ground and does everything I say," intoned Historia, helping Connie pick up the fallen pieces. "And when I tell her we're done, she doesn't move back to her spot until we're out of sight. She doesn't make a sound or talk."

"But I don't understand," said Eren, raising his chin from its perch on his right forearm. "It's been a whole week. She should have said _something_, like, I don't know, threats or other things imprisoned people say." He blinked, realizing what he just said, and sensed prickly discomfiture creep up his neck and face. In his Squad, only Mikasa, Armin and Levi knew where he had disappeared to after the Battle of Trost for a week two months ago and he wasn't ready to broaden the circle of those informed just yet.

"I don't know about that, Eren," said Sasha, who had set down her weapons and tools and was now plucking at her bowstring and listening to the vibrations. "I think it'd be a lot sooner that we hear her growl than talk."

"_Growl_?" asked Connie, pausing in the act of setting down his bishop on its place and turning to raise an eyebrow at his seatmate. "What the hell? I thought we were talking about the girl just now?"

"We are talking about her," said Sasha. "It's just that keeping her locked up with us like this puts me in the mind of when Papa tried keeping and taming a wolf to help our village with the hunting. The bassets are our best sniffers but it's the forest locals who know where the deeper hunting grounds are."

"And how did that turn out?" asked Eren, resettling his head back down nearer to the table. His tone talked of blatant disinterest, as if he didn't care if he received an answer or not.

"Terrible," said Sasha grimly, remembered dread creating sparks within her chocolate eyes and making her face look positively queasy. "She made Papa trust her enough to leash instead of cage her one night and she raided the McCormacks' poultry houses without so much as rousing the dogs." She stared down at the table, looking nothing short of teary-eyed and mournfully whispered, "We couldn't have chicken for more than a month…"

"What happened to it?" asked Eren, his voice suddenly tinged with interest.

Sasha shrugged. "We tracked her down to her lair the next morning where she was trying to move her pups out. Must have sensed we were out to get her," she said quite nonchalantly, going back to making sure her bowstring was tight and set. "And then we drove her back into the den and shot her dead."

"That's unfair," said Eren. Pity for animals was unnatural for him as he had never really been especially fond of them, but he knew what injustice was and he felt sorry for the wolf. "You should have just left it alone. It never would have done that in the first place if you hadn't taken it in."

"They had no choice Eren," said Connie, putting on the tone he used whenever he knew (or thought he knew) he was saying something witty. "The forest near the Dauper Village is slowly running out of game in its borders so them hunters need a guide to help them go deeper." He let his pawn devour one of Krista's with a smart _click_ on the wooden board – clearly missing that it was a trap she laid out for him to expose his king – and Eren can't help but be painfully reminded of Oluo. "Besides, chicken is chicken. I say it got e_xac_tly what it deserved."

"Why, Connie, you're not half as bad as everyone says you are!" said Sasha, her pitch heightened with genuine cheer for her squad mate.

Connie started in his seat and when he turned to splutter at her, all the suave and smooth in his voice had gone coarse. "Was that supposed to be an insult, Potato Girl?!"

This time, Eren did roll his eyes over the shocked face Sasha pulled on, which he was sure wouldn't be so comical if it had been anyone but her bald comrade who caused for it to happen, but before she was able to tell the provoker how much she trusted him and demand an explanation for breaking her heart, the trapdoor opened to reveal Jean's solemn head.

"Hey Eren, remember what I told you about her never saying anything?" he hastened before anyone could verbally acknowledge his arrival.

"Ye- what? Why? Has she started talking? What did she say? Did she say anything about Outside?" asked Eren, jumping out of seat, eyes shining with excitement for the first time in days.

"Nothing of the sort," replied Jean sardonically. He turned to the others before Eren had the time to spit out a rebuke. "Good news. She's changed position. She's still curled up but she's lying on the floor. I don't need the extra food so you could pretend you've found it out, Sasha."

Eren retried screaming at the taller boy for intentionally holding the news back from him but before he could, Sasha said, "That's great! Thank you Jean! I'll let Armin know when we switch for guard duty outside." Eren could hear from her voice that her mouth was already watering over the prospect of taking the blonde's share of bread for a meal, which was the reward Armin promised anyone who took his place at guard duty and, should what he had been anticipating for the past week happen during the stand-in's turn, promptly report "The First Altercation" to him, after which he would award the aforementioned person a whole day's worth of loaves.

"What was she saying, Jean?" asked Historia blankly, her soft voice hardly heard over Connie's string of protests over not being the one to take Jean's impending prize.

"Shut up, Connie, overeating will only make your head _hurt _even more! That's the bad news, Krista. For her, anyway. She's passed out in a delirium, muttering fever stuff."

* * *

_-blood, sweat, tears, dirt, muck, we are the prey and they are the hunters, the cockroach felt alive and kicking at her throat, she threw up but still felt thirsty so she leaned down and drank some more, she screeched and slapped at the rats but they wouldn't stop biting her, they said they'll be friends if she did it so she ignored the hot wet stink and bit down, the thing that pinned her to the ground was heavy and big, she couldn't move or breathe and it all felt so _wrong_-_

_Wrong_

_Wrong_

_Wro-_

"Tom, save me."

Wrong.

"Ruska. Are you awake?"

Her eyes tore open at the sound of her name and she made to swipe a cocked fist against the throat of whoever spoke but she found that she couldn't. A crushing weight was blanketed over her and keeping her eyes open felt like hell. So she closed them. She was dying anyway, and she might as well be as comfortable as possible.

Something started slapping her cheek and each hit was harder than the one before. "Don't close your eyes, don't sleep. You'll die if you do. Ruska. _Ruska._"

She wanted to tell them to shut up but she knew that whoever they were, they weren't worth her time and remaining strength. Soon enough, she'll see him again and everything will be better.

Something tugged at her hair and forced her left cheek to leave the floor. _Now _she had to protest. "Go away," she tried to say, but her jaw and tongue had transformed into lead. She managed to open a bleary eye and saw that her healer was leaning over her, her golden locks framing her fair face. The girl on the floor twisted her face into a weak scowl.

"That's much better," said the other blue-eyed girl. "You passed out from hunger last night. It's been twelve hours since. You need to eat."

_Che_, she thought. She closed her eyes again and let her face unfurl back to its natural state; they were no longer touching her hair. She breathed, knowing oblivion was at last within reach of her fingertips.

The last thing she remembered was the feeling of something thin and curved entering her mouth and depositing within a thick, warm fluid with tiny chunks of something soft and solid. She swallowed it gratefully and let her mind float into oblivion.

* * *

_Once upon a time, there was a girl with no name. She lost it a long, long time ago, when she was just a baby. At least, that's what she told people when they called her names but she knew deep in her heart that she never had one, never will._

_She lived in a farming village with other people, but they had families and friends and they were too busy being happy to give her what she needed. Everyday, she would watch mothers and fathers shop in the streets and work in the fields but they were all disgusted of her and when they whispered to one another, they would look at her with undisguised loathing. She would ask to play with the children her age but the little girls always shrieked and ran away and the little boys always said mean things and threw stones when she got too close. _

_She wondered if it was because she had some body parts missing and they didn't._

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Krista?"

Historia tapped a heel impatiently on the bit of the wall beneath the windowsill she was sitting on. "I told you already," she said, striving hard to let her tolerance stretch a little longer. "We're running out of blood pills and sneaking into Sina to buy something so expensive and suspicious could get us all caught. Besides, don't you want Jean and Heichou to get better?"

"Of course I do," interjected Sasha. "It's just that… what if what she says kills them?"

"It won't. She owes me. And if that isn't enough, I know something about her that would get her to do anything we want her to."

Stumped, Sasha stared at the floor, searching for an excuse to stay out of what her squad mate was proposing. After a few seconds, she looked up and said, "But what will Connie say? He'll be on guard by then, 'cause he lost when we–"

"He's in on the plan and he won't tell on us. I need you to get down there then call for me in front of the others and say she's passed out again."

"Well, er… Won't they be suspicious since you spent the whole day yesterday feeding her?"

Historia sighed. It was hard dealing with unwilling and unimaginative people, she realized. "We could pretend that she's still sick," she cooed, channeling the essence of Krista Lenz into her mouth the very best she could. "You're a good actress. You could say that you felt her body heat a whole floor away even before she dropped down or something. I wouldn't ask you to do this for me if I knew you weren't capable, you know."

Sasha reddened and her eyes rested on the ceiling of the small unused room they were in as if she was already rehearsing the scene she was about to play in her head. Although Historia despised being Krista, the latter's perceptiveness on what makes people feel good about themselves and talent when it comes to the subtlest forms of persuasion were some things she had no plans on discarding.

"Alright," Sasha said finally once her thoughts slumped back down to earth. "I'll do it. But you'll take all the blame in case we're caught, yes?"

"Don't let it worry you," said Historia, hopping down from the table.

* * *

"But why did you have to bring me back down here?" Sasha wailed, quietly so that those above them didn't hear. Her well trained ears sensed Krista's little sigh in the darkness.

"I need to make sure you won't tell on me, that's why," she said. A spark of smoke and a hiss of orange revealed her comrade's set face.

"I wasn't planning to," said Sasha moving her candleholder whose fire had gone out earlier from hurrying to the dining room to make their act look believable in her hand towards the flame in Krista's hand. She had even taken Krista's wrist and dragged her down the stairs without lighting it first in a state of frenzied panic, which was why they were now in the dark, barely having managed to assure Levi-heichou that their prisoner wasn't _too _sick and needed his attention.

Sasha guarded the fire from a nonexistent breeze with her free hand as Krista touched the match to the wick before flicking her wrist twice to put out the original flame. "I understand perfectly well why you couldn't give me bread for this, but I have my honor," she continued.

"You're only saying that because you're talking to me now," said Krista, moving forward to push away the barrel that hid the cellar's trapdoor.

Sasha inhaled to fire back a protest but thought better of it and instead watched the goddess she once knew opened up the hole on the floor. She pulled on the door once got in next to her and together they made their way downstairs.

Sasha glanced at her squad mate's tranquil countenance in the dim light and took in the turbulent storms swirling in her sapphire eyes. Like all the other times she did so the past month, this sight caused for her annoyance to dissipate into pity for her team mate. Among their squad, Sasha and Connie were the one who felt and understood the blonde girl's sadness over losing Ymir the most but even they was baffled over how Krista's emotional decline refused to cease even after one whole month of sullen mourning.

"Krista…" Sasha began.

"I'm sorry," said Krista quietly. Fairly enough, Sasha felt it but it was accompanied by a chilly sort of droopiness, the same one that colored their captain's voice whenever they asked him about his past and he gave them an answer. She thought she had stopped feeling Krista's sorry's in its raw form weeks ago. Suddenly, something clicked and Sasha found her heart thumping uncomfortably over the dangerous notion: they were slowly, surely _losing_ her.

Sasha knew she had to do something, anything to pull Krista out of the pool of despair she was sinking in. Forgetting everything else but the well-being of her friend, she said, "Krista, if you want to talk about it-"

"Thank you, Sasha," the shorter girl answered, just like it was scripted. "But not now. We have more pressing matters at hand." It had always been a maybe later, not yet, not now… not ever. Sasha exhaled through her nose in the half-darkness.

"Hey, Krista," said Connie as they approached him, shocking Sasha out of her dismal wonderings. She made sure he saw her scowl and turn her head away from him: she was still mad over him calling her _that _two nights ago. "Hey, Sash," he acknowledged her a little lamely, using the nickname he employed when trying to get to her good side. She crossed her arms and turned up her nose.

After a few seconds of silence, Connie huffed (_Sighed hopelessly, _Sasha assured herself) and turned to Krista. "I won't tell on you guys like you said, Krista," he said. "But would you mind telling me what's going on now?"

"Thank you Connie. That will do," said Krista. "We'll talk with her now, if you don't mind."

Connie stopped tapping the butt of his gun against his knee. "Are you telling me to go away?" Krista just stared at him.

"Okay, your highness," said Connie sounding pissed. He rose and grumpily trudged away from them. "I'll be working on my abs in the cellar if you need me."

Sasha listened to the closing of the trapdoor ahead and above them and suddenly felt all her anger for the boy melt away for having been on the receiving end of one Krista's black moods. "Do you want me to leave too?" she asked her companion a little meanly.

"No," said Krista. "You're good. I'll tell him what went down later. I just did that to get her attention." Sure enough, their prisoner's eyes was now attached to _their_ feet even though she was still slumped in the corner the way she always did when Sasha fed her or checked her out during guard duty.

"Smart," Sasha whispered.

"Ruska," Krista began in a brisk, business-like manner, stepping closer to the cell and holding one of the bars. "My name is Krista Lenz. I saved your life yesterday. In exchange for that, I want you tell me how to heal Jean and Levi-heichou."

The figure behind the bars blinked at the sound of their captain's name and when that was done her gaze turned into a glare. _I don't do favors, domineering shit, _the midnight within her eyes seemed to say. Sasha wondered when the voices in her head learned to swear. Maybe that factor was unique to just this one.

"Well, I thought you'd react that way," said Krista after a bout of quiet, as if the girl on the floor really did say that out loud. "Well, I can't give you back your sketchbook," she continued. "But I know there's something else you would like."

Their prisoner's dark eyes began to slither back to her feet but before it could complete its journey, Krista said, "I know because you have moaned for your eyes more than once while you were delirious."

The girl turned to look at them so suddenly that Sasha almost jumped. Her eyes had contracted so much that they were hardly pinpricks in the soft, orange light. The fear that shown off them was one that Sasha was familiar with, like those a fox who had just realized that the hunters were not after her, but her cubs: it was one that Sasha had seen in the woods more times than she could possibly count, one that had the ability to transform into raw fire in a matter of seconds and send her hunting party home, victorious but mangled and wrapped with bloody bandages. Sasha tightened her grip on her bow and arrows and almost moved to take aim and nip the deadly onslaught she was sure was coming in the bud, but she remembered there was nothing in her hands but a candlestick that was trembling almost as much as her soul.

Then, the girl blinked and the fright was replaced with a blaze. Sasha posed to dash the hell out of the place and drag Krista to safety upstairs but there was something wrong with the miniature inferno shining at them from the darkness of the cell at the very edge of the dungeon. It didn't look anywhere near violent or fierce, just unbelievably smooth like a knife in the dark. Biding its time and waiting.

Somehow, this was even scarier than what Sasha had expected. She inhaled sharply and wondered just what exactly was wrong with their captive. "Krista," she said, her voice several pitches higher as she turned to look at her companion. "Krista, maybe we should go-"

"Your eyes for information," said Krista, elevating her head and crossing her arms. Sasha thought she looked strange for elevated heads and crossed arms belonged only to Levi and perhaps Mikasa but the shorter girl's cockiness didn't lessen the dread the gripped the brunette's stomach. "Take it or leave it."

The gleam in their jailbird's eyes flickered for a moment, as if her wrath had alleviated into something milder like annoyance, but it reverted back to normal as quickly as it changed. She held Krista's gaze for what felt like a lifetime and Sasha felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle when she heard a ghost's whisper: "Get me a paper and pencil."

* * *

Levi has come across a lot of far-fetched shit in his lifetime but he has never encountered anything more far-fetchedly shitty than this.

"Let me get this straight," he said after Historia explained what she was going to do to him and Jean. "You poke several of those things into 'all the right places' as you say and this" (he jerked his bad arm irritably causing it to bleed for the second time that night) "is supposed to get better?"

"Yes, sir," Historia answered with a confident nod. She looked better than she ever had ever since they caught the cunt, he realized.

Levi surveyed the determined glint in her eyes and decided she hadn't cracked from the strain like he first thought when she gave him the papers and told him of her plan. He rechecked the perfectly drawn diagrams of the left arm without the skin she had placed before him on the table. There were four arms in total, each drawn from a different angle, and everyone of them displayed a few holes in certain points on different veins and muscles.

"She calls it 'acupuncture'," said Historia. "I had her explain how it works. Apparently, what she had done to you and Jean involves piercing the right points in your blood vessels and muscles to make them tense and close down, hence stopping the flow of blood and… energy to your arm and leading for paralysis. Taking the needles off the wrong way stops paralysis but, in her words, 'disorients' the affected part, preventing it from going back to normal. This 'acupuncture' does the opposite and reopens up the stressed parts for… energy to naturally flow back to where it is needed."

"You falter at 'energy'," Levi pointed out, tearing his eyes away from noting the positions of the six new pinpricks he was about to receive to look at the speaker. Historia glanced down at her feet and did something that Levi could only describe as an embarrassed sort of cringe but didn't say a word. _It's pure and utter bullshit, _he imagined her saying.

"It's pure and utter bullsh- sorry, Heichou," said Jean from across him at the table. He too was holding a sheet of used paper in his hands and his long face looked particularly worried over the prospect of having Historia stick a needle into one of the veins of his neck. "I know we need to do something about this soon but isn't there another way that doesn't involve the chance of us dying or becoming useless for life?" He faced Historia and continued, "I know you feel sure this won't hurt us 'cause she owes you your life and all that, but…" He looked back to the drawing again and flinched before looking serious again. "I'm nothing special so it wouldn't matter much but… if this goes bad and Humanity loses Heichou-"

"I know the risk," Historia said plainly. "That's why, if Heichou gives me permission, I'm trying it on you first." (Jean's head snapped to the right to gawk at her, alarmed by her straightforwardness. Levi suddenly found himself liking the girl much better than he did five seconds ago.) "However, I am fully confident that this will do nothing to put you both in danger. It won't be an exaggeration if I say I have her at the palm of my hand at this time. She wouldn't dare do anything to displease me." She said it very simply without a hint of drama or arrogance, so simply that Levi couldn't be helped but feel bothered. It didn't take him long to get it.

"You offered her something in return," Levi said slowly. "But not her sketchbook. The next important thing."

The statement hung in the air like an ornate chandelier supported by a string of yarn. Showing reluctance for the first time that evening, Historia gave a wooden nod. "But what is it? And how did you find out?" asked Jean, aghast. Levi felt dread that had no place in the present chew at his lungs.

Historia stood there but the expression on her face was the furthest you could get from guilt, or pride for the matter. Slowly, she took a little phial from the pocket of her skirt and placed it on the table.

"Her body has an incredibly strong resistance against hunger," she said. "I can only imagine why. The average human becomes delirious after 36 hours without eating. With continuous supply of water and at the rate she was going, she could've lasted another three days. We simply couldn't wait that long."

"You mean… two nights ago wasn't… natural," said Jean, his question turning into a declaration halfway through his sentence as he eyed the empty bottle on the table. There was a sound from beyond the door behind Historia like someone gasped sharply and tried to suppress it halfway but they all dismissed it as the squeaking of a mouse (_Why the fuck won't they run out, _thought Levi.).

Levi felt something cold prick the inside of his midsection and he exhaled slowly. The childish-looking young woman had the vaguest personality among his subordinates, god knows why, but as Levi stared at the expressionless mask she wore as she looked back at him, he knew now that she was unique: as passive as a rain cloud, relentless like the sea and colder than a glacier.

Historia Reiss had a sting of her own.

"Jeez," Jean muttered with a little _What the hell happened to you, _smirk on his face. "Looks like you've learned a few tricks from Ymir."

Color lit up the girl's face and she looked down at her shoes. There was nothing smug or sadistic about her expression but the suppressed little smile she wore told Levi that Jean's words pleased her, like it was some perverse and secret compliment. If it was possible, the man felt warier over the child. "No, not really," she said almost bashfully. "I thought about it on my own. It had been easy to sneak it in her drink that evening. When she had blabbed enough, I gave her the antidote and fed her. She _did _need to eat."

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" asked Levi. He wondered if he should have said it accusatorily.

Historia looked him in the eye and shrugged. "I didn't want anyone else involved," she said, "in case it didn't work. It would have been a waste of time to make everyone expectant. Besides, I want to be fully responsible for it. I mean-" She glanced down at her shoes again and something oddly brittle seemed to shine through the usual silent tempest that churned within her eyes. When she raised her head a second later, it had vanished completely. "So. Shall we?"

Levi tried to discern the fragility she had let slip that one precious moment and at the same time, unravel the truth behind her last sentence. He knew his efforts were futile. "In a moment," he said instead. "What else did she say?"

Historia tilted her head slightly to the side. "Not much. Something about being too weak to save someone. She kept saying the name 'Tom'. Nothing useful to us, at least not now."

"Do you have anymore of those?" said Levi, pointing his chin at the bottle. "We might need them again." Historia shook her head.

"Well," said Levi with a little huff. He turned to Jean and said, "What do you say? Will you do it?"

Jean started, obviously taken aback by the fact that humanity's strongest was asking him for his opinion. Levi remembered the first time he did this to Eren and was glad that the taller boy's reaction wasn't as exaggerated. Still, he found himself battling the urge to roll his eyes up to the heavens. "O-of course sir," said Jean. And then, as if to demonstrate willingness, he smiled grimly at Historia and said, "We'll need the needles from Hange-san and whatever she requested, eh? So what did she ask for?"

She told them. Levi pondered for a second. He looked back at the six needle-sized holes marked on his paper and for a moment wished that getting what their captive wanted wasn't that easy to get. "Wrestle with Hange for it if you have to," he ordered.

* * *

from the Diary of Historia Reiss, September 16:

It worked. My plan worked. I did it. Jean and Heichou are completely healed. Just some bleeding from the needles, _natural_ bleeding. But that'll go away and they both said they feel fine now, perfectly fine.

I thought I should be happy.

* * *

Connie didn't understand why Sasha had very (in)discreetly plunged a pair of goggles into their prisoner's mug as he took up her rations in the kitchen (partnered with the pressing of a pointer finger to her lips and a very noisily executed "Shh!" before marching back to the dining table to help the others bus the dishes while humming loudly and yelling that she had been up to nothing, nothing at all when Levi opened his mouth to ask Eren something) or how Krista had finally found the cure to the captain and Jean's wounds just last night or why Eren had greeted Krista at breakfast that morning with a bellowed "WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?" and was now glaring at her each and every time they happened to pass each other.

_Go figure, _he thought now, tossing the loaf of bread into the air and catching it again with the narrow mouth of the mug in his right hand as he made his way below the cellar. He stopped his descent for a few seconds to let it wobble back into its steady state and grinned at his dexterity before tramping down the stone steps once more and walking into the current guard's line of sight.

"Hey Jean, check this out!" he called, extending an arm to show that his left hand was occupied by a candleholder. He flicked his right wrist up in a way that catapulted the loaf into the air but didn't cause the water from the mug to spill outwards. As it fell one feet above his head, he hit it with the cup to let it fall in a position that would make its shooting into the mug impossible when he caught it, but he miscalculated where it would fall and somehow ended up on the floor with his arms askew in front of him and the bread between his teeth. He cringed over the pain in his chest from skidding several feet on the floor and felt his ears burn at the sound of Jean's laughter.

"Nice!" gasped Horseface. "Real impressive slide!"

Connie banged the candleholder on the floor and used his now free hand to take the loaf off his mouth to curse.

* * *

A conversation. A noisy one. Teasing. Angry. Footsteps ascending stones…

She waited for the sound of the slammed door above her to echo into nothingness. When this happened, she scooted closer to the bars of her cell and pulled her rations towards her. Placing the broken loaf on her lap, she pulled her goggles out of the water and gently shook it dry, carefully wiping each corner and inch with the edges of her tunic. Then she nuzzled it to her lips and clutched it close to her heart.


End file.
